Optical metrology articles within Nature Photonics

Featured

  • News & Views |

    A sub-cycle modulation in reflectivity is observed in bulk crystals subjected to intense laser fields. The effect provides a new way to probe attosecond dynamics in materials.

    • Shambhu Ghimire

  • Article |

    Light-field-induced electron dynamics in a silicon dioxide dielectric system are exploited to directly measure the attosecond relative electronic delay response in the dielectric system, potentially extending the speed of data processing and information encoding into the petahertz realm.

    • Dandan Hui
    • , Husain Alqattan
    •  & Mohammed Th. Hassan

  • News & Views |

    A chip-based optical frequency comb has enabled the realization of a 300 GHz signal with record low phase noise. The development could yield ultra-compact, ultra-low-noise sources for millimetre-wave applications in telecommunications, remote sensing and precision spectroscopy.

    • Yann Le Coq

  • Article |

    A 300 GHz signal is generated by the combination of a low-noise stimulated Brillouin scattering process, dissipative Kerr soliton comb and optical-to-electrical conversion. A phase noise of −100 dBc Hz−1 is achieved at a Fourier frequency of 10 kHz.

    • Tomohiro Tetsumoto
    • , Tadao Nagatsuma
    •  & Antoine Rolland

  • Article |

    By focusing a sub-relativistic infrared laser pulse onto a silica target, a periodic deflection pattern of attosecond electron pulse trains is observed. It reveals these subcycle charge dynamics with a streaking speed of ~60 μrad as−1.

    • Chuliang Zhou
    • , Yafeng Bai
    •  & Zhizhan Xu

  • News & Views |

    Optical clocks held at slightly different heights provide a stringent test of general relativity comparable to space experiments and open new opportunities for clock-based geophysical sensing.

    • Kai Bongs
    •  & Yeshpal Singh

  • Letter |

    A pair of transportable optical lattice clocks with 10−18 uncertainty is developed. The relativistic redshift predicted by the theory of general relativity has been tested at the 10–5 level by the two optical clocks with a height difference of 450 m on the ground.

    • Masao Takamoto
    • , Ichiro Ushijima
    •  & Hidetoshi Katori

  • News & Views |

    Two articles in Nature Photonics demonstrate how Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen entanglement can reduce quantum noise in gravitational-wave interferometers.

    • Pierre-François Cohadon

  • Letter |

    Using a femtosecond mode-locked laser and a frequency-locked electric signal, a displacement measurement method that offers a >MHz measurement speed, sub-nanometre precision and a measurement range of more than several millimetres is achieved, facilitating the study of broadband, transient and nonlinear mechanical dynamics in real time.

    • Yongjin Na
    • , Chan-Gi Jeon
    •  & Jungwon Kim

  • Article |

    The combined technique of dual-comb multi-heterodyne detection and Fourier-transform analysis allows simultaneous acquisition and monitoring of the phase pattern of a generic frequency comb demonstrating the high degree of coherence of the emission of two quantum cascade laser frequency combs.

    • Francesco Cappelli
    • , Luigi Consolino
    •  & Saverio Bartalini

  • Editorial |

    Frequency combs measure optical frequencies with an unprecedented precision, allowing myriad applications in optical metrology, high-precision spectroscopy, optical atomic clocks, attosecond science, astronomy and, recently, quantum information processing.

  • Editorial |

    The Nobel Prize-winning observation of gravitational waves has required laser interferometry to be pushed to extreme limits of sensitivity.

  • News & Views |

    Applications of the concept of structured light are not limited to optical communications, metrology, and probing and sensing, they can also go beyond optics.

    • Rachel Won

  • News & Views |

    The direct measurement of few-cycle optical waveforms with arbitrary polarization and weak intensity is now made possible thanks to extreme ultraviolet interferometry with isolated attosecond pulses.

    • Pascal Salières

  • Review Article |

    Photonic time-stretch techniques and their applications are reviewed. The approach enables the observation of signals that are otherwise too short or rapid for conventional measurement.

    • Ata Mahjoubfar
    • , Dmitry V. Churkin
    •  & Bahram Jalali

  • News & Views |

    The ability to make measurements of time and fundamental physical constants with extreme precision makes it possible to test theories to ever greater levels of scrutiny. A workshop in Tokyo in January discussed the challenges involved and the progress being made.

    • Noriaki Horiuchi

  • Editorial |

    Designed with a laser metrology system, LISA Pathfinder is on track to demonstrate the first in-flight test of low-frequency gravitational wave detection metrology in space.

  • News & Views |

    The quantum concepts of entanglement and interaction-free measurements are applied to spectroscopy to successfully sense carbon dioxide in air.

    • Jean-Pierre Wolf
    •  & Yaron Silberberg

  • Letter |

    Direct measurement of the electric field of light in the near-infrared is experimentally demonstrated, showing that careful optical filtering allows the time-resolved detection of electric field oscillations with half-cycle durations as short as 2.1 fs, even with a 5 fs sampling pulse.

    • Sabine Keiber
    • , Shawn Sederberg
    •  & Nicholas Karpowicz

  • Research Highlights |

    • Noriaki Horiuchi

  • Letter |

    With the help of two photonic controlled-NOT gates, a three-logical-qubit concatenated Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (C-GHZ) state encoded by a six-photon graph state is experimentally created. Observation of the dynamics of distillability evolving under a collective noisy environment revealed that the C-GHZ state is more robust than the conventional GHZ state.

    • He Lu
    • , Luo-Kan Chen
    •  & Jian-Wei Pan

  • Interview |

    Spectral purity can now be transferred from one laser to another with a very different wavelength at an order of magnitude better than previously achievable. Yann Le Coq spoke to Nature Photonics about the new development.

    • David Pile

  • Letter |

    An optical-frequency comb-based scheme is demonstrated that transfers a 4.5 × 10−16 fractional frequency stability from a 1,062-nm-wavelength laser to a 1,542-nm-wavelength laser. Transfer is also reported down to 4 × 10−18 at 1 s, which is one order of magnitude below that of previously reported work with comparable systems.

    • Daniele Nicolodi
    • , Bérengère Argence
    •  & Yann Le Coq

  • News & Views |

    Squeezed light allows quantum limits to be overcome in precision metrology. A new way of producing this special form of light has now been demonstrated by engineering the vibrations of nanostructured optical cavities.

    • George A. Brawley
    •  & Warwick P. Bowen

  • News & Views |

    The web of optical fibre networks deployed across Europe is proving useful for experiments in optical metrology and sensing in addition to their primary use of carrying Internet data and telephone calls.

    • Oliver Graydon

  • News & Views |

    Light is an excellent tool for making precise measurements of objects, but can sometimes alter or damage a sensitive sample. Researchers have now shown that entanglement and quantum-correlated light can be used to help alleviate this problem.

    • Geoff J. Pryde

  • News & Views |

    Using a real-time measurement technique to study the single-shot properties of modulation instability, scientists have shown that its initial stochastic nature in an optical system can lead to specific correlation properties in both the spectral and temporal domains.

    • Arnaud Mussot
    •  & Alexandre Kudlinski

  • Editorial |

    Frequency combs, optical clocks and quantum techniques that go beyond classical limits are all making photonics a powerful tool for understanding and defining our universe in ever-greater detail.

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